The little girl in the car sat quietly in a sea of daisies staring at the tiny white frog in the plastic bag. The African clawed frog was a gift from her mother. Nevertheless, it simply would never replace Baxter, even if it was from the same place as her parents. Ada poked at the plastic bag sending the frog into a fit of watery energy. When it tired, it slowly sank back to the bottom of the bag, motionless again.

From the driver's seat, her mother smiled. Ada was her most sensitive child. She was like a human tuning fork. Maybe Ada wouldn't forget about the toad but at least her attention would be occupied for a while.

"You guys look look!" Ada exclaimed bursting into the living room, the pet shop plastic bag shaking violently in her tight grip. "Mommy got me this!"

Her oldest sister, Chinyere, who sat in front of the wide screen television only grunted. She was too grown up for such childish nonsense. Iheoma sat at the family computer. She glanced at Ada with a hint of interest. She was in the midst of her most wonderful poem ever and was a little annoyed at the interruption. She squinted at the bag. "Why the thing is almost, like, microscopic!" she said. She turned back to her poem. "Now quit bugging me. A poet is not to be interrupted."

Ada set up the aquarium with shaking hands. No, the frog wasn't Baxter but it sure was cute. It had beady black eyes and a permanent smile stretched across its face. The twelve-gallon aquarium decorated with plastic sea plants and blue stones was a paradise for the tiny frog. She sat and watched its stop-go movements for hours. The transparent smooth skinned creature pumped its legs, its eyes brooding and its short hands limp. Every so often a bubble of air would escape its tight lips.

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The grass in the yard reached just beyond her head. It was cool and damp from the morning's dew. With a belly full of flies and after a night of thick sleep, she lazily decided to explore the yard. She sat for a moment, listening to the usual loud sounds of the yard -- juicy flies zooming around, worms burrowing underground and the earthshaking footsteps of the ground hairless creatures. She was about to hop further along into the yard when the ground began to tremor. Shit! How could I be so absent -minded, she thought. At the last second she tried to make a hop for it. However, powerful as she was, her speed suffered because of her lack of one leg, her left one. The creature violently scooped her into its hands and for a moment she blacked out from pure shock. She shut her brown speckled eyes and prayed that the Unnamed had better things in store for her. The hairless being was making guttural sounds and jumping up and down. She felt her full stomach turn. She was whirled arou nd, poked and prodded, thrust into the faces of other hairless beings and then finally thrown into a flimsy box and left alone next to their home.

For hours, she could only sit there in shock, sick to her stomach. Her warts and bumps ached; her one foot and two hands were sore. Night finally fell, and she was still left alone. It had begun to rain by the time she had saved up enough energy for her escape. She threw her heavy bulk hard against the box's wall again and again. By this time it had begun to rain and the box was deteriorating. She burst through it and hopped, free, into the night.

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"You're a nigger lover, Jimmy!" one of the boys sang out the window from the back of the bus. "Yeah, your lips are gonna turn black and get all fat by tomorrow! Ha ha!"

The little boy with the fine blonde hair and thick black glasses put his chin to his chest and hurried past the bus on his bike. Ada sat in the middle of the bus trying to disappear. It was like this everyday. When the group of young white boys each took turns spitting in her hair, she did as she did practically everyday; she recited frog genus' in her head: Agalychnis, Atelopus, Bufo, Centrolenella, Dendrobates, Hyla. As she walked home, her hair laden with saliva, she'd always begin to feel better. Anything was better than the bus ride home. She was the only black girl in the third grade. And her two sisters were in the junior high, which meant no back up. It was an understatement to say that her school had a racial problem. The entire neighborhood was borderline KKK territory. When she got home, she'd scrub her hair and body, thoroughly. The afternoon was bright orange-yellow and the air smelled of honeysuckle. As soon as the little Nigerian American girl stepped off the bus, it was as if the sun and air cleared her head of all the filth she'd just endured. By the time the bus was behind her, she was skipping home.

"Hi, mom," she said, heading straight for her room. "How was school?" "The usual," she called behind her, in her high-pitched voice. Standing in the hot water of the shower, Ada let herself wonder why that annoying Jimmy Panagopolis has kissed her on the playground. Aside from the fact that he was always intentionally getting on her nerves, he had stolen Baxter from her. She had caught Baxter that night. Her mother had forced her to keep it outside. The only container that she could quickly find was a Happy Meal box in the garbage. The very next day Jimmy had been bragging on the playground about catching a big one-legged toad. There was no way Jimmy could have caught the toad near his house as he had claimed. He lived blocks away from her! She had punched him in the face then and there. He'd only laughed, blew her another kiss and skipped away.

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Ada: I don't really notice stuff like that.

The Olive E-Zine: So you're saying that though you were the only black girl in your entire grade, you didn't think there was much of a problem with that?

Ada: Like I said, I didn't really notice stuff like that back then.

The Olive E-Zine: So tell me about these racial images that show up in your paintings?

Ada: That's only what you see.

The Olive E-Zine: So you're denying that the images are racial?

Ada: I'm not denying anything.

The Olive E-Zine: Interesting. Back to your past, so when those boys spit in your hair every bus ride, you didn't think it had anything to do with your race?

Ada: Can we talk about something else? Really, there are more important things. Geez!

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Ada picked nasty seaweed from between her toes and then stood awkwardly in her leaf green swimming suit. She was highly aware of her blackness in the hot sun amongst the more common whiteness all around her. She could spot her two sisters easily amongst the sunbathers. Aside from their huge umbrella, the two girls were like pepper in a salty sea. She wished they'd come into the water with her. She hated swimming alone but, as usual, they would rather sit and talk about boys than swim.

"He's cool but, I don't know, he's always complaining about how strict mom and dad are." Chinyere said.

"Let me guess," said Iheoma. "He said that you should just stand up to them and get on with your life."

Chinyere's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "That's exactly what he said! I mean, who stands up to their parents at fifteen!"

"Don't listen to him," said Iheoma. "That boy is stupid or something."

Ada squinted at her sisters from near the water and decided not to try and convince them to join her. What was the point? She'd only be wasting her time and mom would be back to pick them up soon. Instead she padded across the hot sand toward the more deserted part of the beach where all the crabs and sea urchins liked to hang out. The seawater dried into flaky granules of salt on her smooth skin. She licked her arm. The Bahamas were beautiful. To Ada the islands were enchanted with unimaginable creatures that she'd never forget. She'd almost fainted in pleasure the first time she saw a humming bird. She was staring at a large red flower when it had zoomed by. It hovered in front of the flower for only a moment and then disappeared. Ada's first reaction was that it was a large dragonfly. But a second look showed her that it was a tiny bird with tiny purple blue and black feathers. Other treasures included a balcony filled with fiery eyed bright green tree frogs one morning, air so laden with water that her skin seemed to breath, speckled sting rays that loomed at the bottom of shallow waters like miniature draculas and a dark roaring sea shore that only appeared at night. During the day it was tranquil and clear as glass. But at night, when the tide came in, the waters became black and terrifying. Any monster could have hidden safely in those waters. The thought excited Ada very much. When she got to a deserted place on the beach next to the water, she plopped down in the damp sand and began to draw pictures in the sand with her index finger.

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"But mommy, I hate poetry," Ada whined. Next to her on the floor lay her sister, smiling smugly.

"I love poetry, mommy. You can read this one that I'm writing when I'm done."

"OK, Iheoma. Come read it to your father and me in our room when you're finished," their mother said with a chuckle.

Iheoma looked smugly at her sister, her neck craned to the side like a dove. Ada stuck her tongue out.

"Ada, try your best to write something, OK," her mother said walking away. Ada grumbled to herself. She had always hated poetry. It wasn't even fun to read, let alone write. Poetry couldn't compare to actual books, she thought. She couldn't imagine one mere poem giving her the pleasure that "A Comet in Moomin Land" or "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" gave her. Why is mom always trying to make me write poetry? As if it's the only thing that would make me creative or something.

"Maybe you're just not creative enough," said Iheoma. "Not everyone is born with it, you know."

"Oh shut up, you...you ass kisser. Go dance for mom and dad or something," Ada snapped.

"You're just green with envy because your brain is dry and mine isn't, ha ha," Iheoma replied in a singsong voice. Ada had to control herself from rolling over and kicking her sister. Though Iheoma was only four years older than she was, Iheoma was already twice her size. And she wouldn't hesitate to kick Ada's ass if necessary, which seemed to be quite often these days. Why was Iheoma such an ass kisser, always out to please mom and dad, getting the best grades, having the most friends? She was such an asshole, Ada silently fumed as she remembered coming down the stairs after a long shower to the sound of music. And there her older sister was in the middle of the living room shaking her annoying booty. Both her parents sat beaming on the couch clapping and laughing. Ada wanted to bite through her lip when her mother giggled and said "Isn't she talented?!"

"So much showmanship!" her father said.

"Showwomanship!" Iheoma said. Ada ripped up the paper full of poetic fits and starts and threw it at Iheoma. On the fresh new piece, she began to draw her pet African clawed frog. The frog was the second one she had, the first one surviving only a week. However, Barney II had lasted seven months and he deserved to be drawn. Ada closed her eyes and pictured Barney II and thought about how much she loved him. He never told her how uncreative she was. He'd never spit in her hair or make fun of her course hair and wide nostriled nose. He'd never accuse her of scratching her booty. And he didn't expect her to act any certain way just because she was a girl. Her eyes closed and her pen moving across the paper, her lip quivered.

"Hey that's pretty good," Iheoma said looking over her shoulder. Ada turned to look at her sister. Iheoma suddenly didn't sound her usual chipper self.

"Thanks," Ada said trying to read the look on her middle sister's face. Iheoma looked like she was about to cry.

"What's your problem?" Iheoma just shrugged and looked away. Ada turned back to her picture and the two continued creating.

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